It’s easy to feel like we’re swirling in a COVID-19-induced vortex of helplessness.
Our first instinct may be to hunker down and protect ourselves and our immediate families. But to get through these times with our sanity and well-being intact, we may need to push back on this initial impulse. Research shows that when we put a high priority on reaching out to others, our own mental and physical health flourish.
Helping Buoys the Helper, Not Just the Recipient
While we’ve never faced a foe quite like COVID-19 before, doctors and scientists have studied what happens when people pull together and help others after a setback. About a year after the 2008 financial crisis, when thousands of people lost their jobs and homes, Post and his Stony Brook University colleagues surveyed 4,500 Americans about their volunteering habits and their mental health.In the wake of the financial downturn, rates of volunteering were higher than they had been the year before—and that bump came with clear psychological benefits.
Eighty-nine percent of people felt happier overall thanks to their helping efforts, and 78 percent reported that volunteering helped them better deal with disappointment and loss. About three in four volunteers felt less stressed. Many respondents reported making deeper friendships by connecting with other helpers.
“When people feel vulnerable, they can take their mind off the self and the problems of the self, and just experience the simple gratification of contributing to the life of another human being,” Post says. “That’s how people were coping.”
Helping also buoys us mentally because it directs our focus away from scary abstractions and back toward concrete, solvable problems.
During a pandemic, it seems especially relevant that helping promotes robust physical health, as well.
Creative Stay-At-Home Helping Ventures Abound
But how do you help people when you’re stuck at home?Social distancing and shelter-in-place restrictions do put some volunteer opportunities out of reach, especially for members of high-risk groups. However, motivated helpers have found plenty of creative ways to serve others remotely.
When doctors and nurses in the San Francisco Bay Area started running out of personal protection equipment (PPE), thousands of people donated surgical and N95 masks, face shields, antiseptic wipes, and other materials to Kaiser Permanente and other health care organizations.
In Boston, high school teacher Randi Stern has created an uplifting newsletter called The Daily Drop, complete with suggested lockdown activities, book recommendations, and inspiring quotes. She sends it regularly to her friends and family. “It calms me for a couple hours each day,” Stern says. “It’s also nice to get emails back in response to what I’ve written.” She enjoys fostering social connection at a time when so many are hungry for it.
Matching Your Strengths to the Right Opportunities
We tend to get caught up in thinking that only medical personnel and first responders can make a meaningful difference during this crisis. Yet in the COVID-19 era, “simply reaching out to people is being helpful and heroic in small ways,” says University of Richmond psychologist Scott Allison. “Each of us can make a positive difference by tapping into our strengths and sharing them.”In a shelter-in-place context, that might mean teaching a free online math class to kids who can’t attend regular school, or a few minutes a day doing Skype check-ins with lonely members of your social circle.
You don’t have to commit full-time to these practices to make a major difference in others’ lives—and your own. In Post’s study, most volunteers “weren’t overdosing. They were volunteering on average 100 hours a year,” he points out. “If you wanted to space that out, you’re talking about a couple of hours a week, more or less.”
If you live alone and you’re in good health, you may be eligible for essential helping roles that involve a higher degree of risk. Food banks around the country desperately need volunteers at community centers to distribute produce and pantry staples to households in need. Opportunities like this require you to weigh the positive impact you can have against the likelihood of contracting the virus.
“‘They’re gonna come up with something’ is passive,” Post says. “Volunteering is an active form of hope.”
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